Tag: liberty egg hunt

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I’ve been talking about our Synodical Conference this week and while doing so I realized that I use the terms Ablaze rather interchangeably. This has been confusing to people, especially to those outside of our Lutheran Circle. Let me clarify if I may.

There is ABLAZE! which refers to our Synodical Mission Program (something our family and home congregation supports) and there is Ablaze, the church plant in Northern Broken Arrow which is sponsored by The Lutheran Church of Our Savior. I didn’t pick the name – so don’t ask me why we named it that, I don’t know. I realize that unless you are part of our group, it’s really hard to distinguish what I’m talking about. Most of the conversations this week have been about the ABLAZE! initiative. For today’s post, I will be talking about Ablaze Church.

While some church plants receive funding from their districts, others are privately funded. We at Ablaze Church do not receive a dime of the Fan into Flame funding, and we are okay with that. There is another church plant in Bixby that does get district assistance and they need it more than we do. Thier Vicar (who is under direct supervision of a local pastor) has to raise his own salary and funding for his church and deserves a livable wage. Our pastor is already earning a salary from our home church and the time spent at Ablaze is 100% volunteer. He does not get compensated for his time there – and neither do the rest of us. We are all volunteers. All funding we receive is courtesy of our home congregation and private donations or tithes made by Ablaze families.

Our little mission start began on Easter weekend in 2006. We rent space from Liberty Elementary School and meet on Saturday nights with Bible Study at 6pm and services beginning at 6:30. Because of the rental costs and rules of the school we have to be out by 9:00 pm. Also because of rental costs, we can really only afford to be there one night a week. That does not leave a lot of opportunities for outreach which is why we host events from time to time.

Ablaze church is a 100% a mobile church. What that means is we have a trailer locked up at our home congregation across town. Every Saturday at 3:00 pm, a group drives out there, loads the trailer and drives it back to Liberty, 30 minutes away. The doors open at 4:00pm and for the next two hours we are unloading our trailer, setting up the cafeteria and running sound checks.

Can you imagine if the elders of your church had to do that every Sunday Morning? They arrive to a building with no pews, no sound system, no pulpit, no coffee or snacks, no Bibles or hymnals and they have to set everything up before church can begin?

Services at Ablaze end by 8pm. We have a short time of fellowship and our team begins to take down the sound system, pack up the nursery and the bibles and books and load everything back into the trailer. We pray and are back on the road to Our Savior’s garage by 9pm. Once there, our team unloads the trailer and puts the sound system back inside the church to protect it from the climate.

We’ve been doing this every Saturday for 4 1/2 years.

We've added new faces since this photo was taken, but this is Zion's Fire.

Yes, we have a praise band called Zion’s fire to lead worship. And yes, they do contemporary Christian songs as well as reworked hymns and original compositions. We also have confession and absolution, and pastor Dreier delivers not only the children’s message, but the sermon as well.

We decided early on that we wanted our signature outreach event to be the Easter Egg Hunt. Most churches today are only doing hunts within the privacy of their own court yards, for their own congregations. We wanted to be different. We wanted to reach the young families in the neighborhood. And so we opened our first weekend with 4,000 eggs and about 100 prizes. It was cold and snowy that day and we expected at most 100-200 people.

Pastor delivering the Easter Egg Hunt Devotional to about 500 kids

750 people showed up that day, filling the cafeteria. People were standing in the hallway to hear the message. And we were blown away. Seeing the need in the community, we went bigger the next year and planned for 8,000 eggs.

Over 60 volunteers gathered to stuff eggs and help with the hunt.

We made a few mistakes with the hunt in 2007. I’d gather that anywhere from 1,500-2,000 people showed up and we were only expecting 1,000 at the most. We didn’t want to turn people away and yet, our building could not contain the crowds. We learned a lot of hard lessons that year. This event failed on many levels. There was a crowd gathering outside while we were worshipping inside and even though people were stationed out there to guard the eggs families were lining up, a child yelled “go” and like that, all 8,000 eggs were gone. We learned a lot that year. We learned that we needed to be 100% outside. We learned to shorten the service. We learned to combine this with a food drive, to equip team members with walkie talkies, and to have security present. Did the results of this event keep us from trying again?

No. In 2008 we tried again, this time with 12,000 eggs and instead of placing them out in the field before hand, we roped and sectioned it off and placed eggs after people arrived. We also asked families to donate a can of food for Neighbor for Neighbor as they came onto the grounds.

We filled over 35 crates of food for Neighbor for Nieghbor.

Tupper Teaching the Children about the Resurrection - being a new creation in Christ using Balloons.

We also did something unusual. We hired a clown to deliver the message. That is not a typo folks. We hired Stephen Smith, otherwise known as Tupper the Clown, to deliver the message for our hunt.

Do you see how many kids are there? We couldn’t count them. A lot of these families probably have a home church and a lot of these families don’t. Several families have joined Ablaze church as the result of these egg hunts. And all of these families are invited back to Our Savior for our Easter morning worship services.

For those curious or even offended about the use of a clown to deliver the message that day, Steve Smith is an ordained minister and preachers kids to boot. He owns and operates Christian Sanity Theater and performs throughout the state teaching children about science, history, and Jesus Christ. You can learn more about him by clicking here to see his websight. I have personally hired Steve for personal parties as well as fundraisers. He is very gifted.

We’ve done other events as well including a fall festival. We wanted to do something to counter Halloween.

We invited various bands to come perform. This photo is the Axis Worship Band from Rhema

We also invited Christian Comic Michele VanDusen to provide CLEAN FAMILY FRIENDLY entertainment.

Michele VanDusen bringing laughter to the stage.

Local rancher and member of Our Savior Lutheran Church, Dale Brookshire brought his chuck wagon for eats.

Everyone Enjoyed Dale's Authentic Cowboy Chuck Wagon

And again we have the children. That come out to Ablaze either on Saturday nights or for our events.

Neighborhood children enjoying a wet inflatable during Fall Fest

And of course, no church event is complete without pastor Dreier proclaiming the gospel of Christ.

Ablaze Church in Broken Arrow meets faithfully every Saturday Night at Liberty Elementary School in Broken Arrow. We hold various events throughout the year in order to reach out to the community. We also transport Ablaze youth to Vacation Bible School at Our Savior every year.

We are presently looking at a permanent home for ourselves and need your prayers that God would lead us in the right direction very soon.

Next week, I’ll talk about some of the things Our Savior Lutheran Church in Tulsa does for their LOCAL community as well.

Former Mommy/Garden Blogger. My kids are grown and my gardens are dead. The fact that I got it in that order is a good thing. -- Granted those teen years were pretty touch and go Now what? If I keep trying to dress my husband and cut his meat for him, he's going to get mad at me. I'm exploring life after kids. Art. Music. Comedy. Fitness after 40. Acting. Poetry. And trying to find out if it is possible to date the man whose underwear I've spent the last 21 years picking up off the floor.

This is my journey.

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